Andrea RBK: Blog Tour - The Kids Are Gonna Ask by Gretchen Anthony

Y'all, let's talk about how excited I am to FINALLY have a blog tour stop again!! This time, it's for The Kids Are Gonna Ask by Gretchen Anthony.

The book revolves a pair of teenage twins who have tragically lost their mother. They now live with their grandma. One question that has always lingered is who their father is as their mother raised them and never revealed his identity. Thomas and Savannah (the twins) decide to start a podcast about their quest to find this man. The podcast gets some "buzz" both in people who are intrigued by their question as well as others who think their father shouldn't be revealed in such a public way.

The book then focuses on each episode of the podcast, developments in their search for their dad, and some "drama" as others have opinions on what they're trying to do. I'll be honest that I really wanted to know even more about the kids in the story. The story was very much focused on their podcast and quest to find answers about their mom. I just was so intrigued by them, and because there was a story there, I wanted a bit more depth. I felt like it started to go there at the end with some other realizations, but I needed more!

Overall, I found this one to be an interesting read. I was particularly intrigued by the exploration of the world of podcasting and the feedback/backlash/buzz that was created as they went. This is some of what drove the plot. I appreciated that this was a unique dimension of the story.

And as I sometimes do, here's a little excerpt to see if this one is for you!

***

JULY

The house had become an aquarium—one side tank, the other, fingerprint-smeared glass—with Thomas McClair on the inside looking out. There had been a dozen protests outside their home in less than a week, all for the McClairs to—what, enjoy? Critique? Reject? There was no making sense of it.

Tonight, Thomas pulled his desk chair up to the window and kicked his feet onto the sill. He’d been too anxious to eat dinner, but his mind apparently hadn’t notified his stomach, which now growled and cramped. He was seventeen. He could swallow a whole pizza and wash it down with a half-gallon of milk, then go back for more, especially being an athlete. But that was before.

Before the podcast, before the secrets, before the wave of national attention. Now he was just a screwup with a group of strangers swarming the parkway across the street from his house because he’d practically invited them to come.

He deserved to feel awful.

The McClairs had been locked in the house for a week, leaving Thomas short of both entertainment and sanity. He had no choice but to watch the show unfolding outside. Stuck in his beige bedroom, with the Foo Fighters at Wembley poster and the Pinewood Derby blue ribbons, overlooking the front lawn and the driveway and the hand-me-down Volvo neither he nor Savannah had driven since last week. There they stood—a crowd of milling strangers, all vying for the McClairs’ attention. All these people with their causes. Some who came to help or ogle. More who came to hate.

Thomas brought his face almost to the glass and tried to figure out the newly assembling crowd. Earlier that day, out of all the attention seekers, one guy in particular had stood out. He wore black jeans, black boots, a black beanie—a massive amount of clothing for the kind of day where you could see the summer heat curling up from the pavement—and a black T-shirt that screamed WHO’S PAYING YOU? in pink neon. He also held a leash attached to a life-size German shepherd plushy toy.

Some of the demonstrators had gone home for the night, only to be replaced by a candlelight vigil. And a capella singing. There were only about a dozen people in the group, all women, except for two tall guys in the back lending their baritones to a standard rotation of hymns. “Amazing Grace” first, followed by “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” Now they were into a song Thomas didn’t know, but the longer he listened, he figured hundred-to-one odds that the lyrics consisted of no more than three words, repeated over and over. They hit the last note and raised their candles high above their heads. By daaaaaaaaaaaayyyy.

“No more,” he begged into the glass. “I can’t take any more.”

A week. Of this.

Of protests, rallies and news crews with their vans and satellites and microphones.

Of his sister, Savannah, locked in her room, refusing to speak to him.

Of his grandmother Maggie in hers, sick with worry.

Of finding—then losing—his biodad, the missing piece of his mother’s story. And his own.

Thomas was left to deal with it all. Because he’d started it. And because he was a finisher. And most of all, because it wasn’t over yet.

***

About the Book

A whip-smart, entertaining novel about twin siblings who become a national phenomenon after launching a podcast to find the biological father they never knew.

The death of Thomas and Savannah McClair’s mother turns their world upside down. Raised to be fiercely curious by their grandmother Maggie, the twins become determined to learn the identity of their biological father. And when their mission goes viral, an eccentric producer offers them a dream platform: a fully sponsored podcast called The Kids Are Gonna Ask. To discover the truth, Thomas and Savannah begin interviewing people from their mother’s past and are shocked when the podcast ignites in popularity. As the attention mounts, they get caught in a national debate they never asked for—but nothing compares to the mayhem that ensues when they find him.

Cleverly constructed, emotionally perceptive and sharply funny, The Kids Are Gonna Ask is a rollicking coming-of-age story and a moving exploration of all the ways we can go from lost to found.

About the Author

GRETCHEN ANTHONY is the author of Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners, which was a Midwestern Connections Pick and a best books pick by Amazon, BookBub, PopSugar, and the New York Post. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, Medium, and The Write Life, among others. She lives in Minneapolis with her family.